If I had shown the weakness in the last post, please be sure that it wasn’t the case. I should have made it clear that I was given a clean bill regarding NPC. It was a relief in this sense, although Danni had still had a long way down.
Danni had ‘finished’ her treatments by now. By ‘finish’ I mean the maximum limit of radiation dose had been reached.
She is still in the hospital. And probably will still be for most of the time next week.
Today Danni had her last MRI scan, a preliminary conclusion on the chemotherapy and radiotherapy. On that, I wish I could have some encouraging news to share with you, everyone that cares her.
But I am afraid it probably isn’t as good as we had been hoped for. In the interim scan (30/05/2008), I had mentioned that the remained tumour in the throat had ‘shrunk to a quarter of the original size’. Based on that calculation, by now after 11 more radiations to the tumour it should disappear.
It didn’t. It only shrunk by a marginal size.
The one at the neck lymph node did become smaller, although again didn’t disappear.
The scan report wasn’t official yet. I didn’t find any chance to discuss this with Dr. Li, her radiation-oncologist. There would be a panel discussion on the treatment plan tomorrow. I gathered possibly they would ‘add 2 or 3 doses of radiotherapy to the throat tumour’.
Danni had felt particularly bad recently. Suffering from both radiation-stomatitis and radiation-epthelitis, she has unhealed wounds around neck, and she still struggling from eating and drinking. Compared to Caiping and Ahmei, her two friends suffering from NPC, they could be called ‘recovered’.
‘So the whole treatment wasn’t successful?’ Danni asked. I didn’t know how to answer her. The tumour may become smaller in the next six weeks - maybe, and maybe not.
Do we have any choice?
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